Stronger Winds Explain Puzzling Growth of Sea Ice In Antarctica 236
vinces99 writes "As NOAA announces a new record for the extent of sea ice in Antarctica, a new modeling study to be published in the Journal of Climate shows that stronger polar winds lead to an increase in Antarctic sea ice, even when Earth's overall climate is getting warmer. The study (abstract) by Jinlun Zhang, a University of Washington oceanographer, shows that stronger westerly winds swirling around the South Pole can explain 80 percent of the increase in Antarctic sea ice volume during the past three decades. The polar vortex that swirls around the South Pole is not just stronger than it was when satellite records began in the 1970s, it also shoves the sea ice together to cause ridging. Stronger winds also drive ice faster, which leads to still more deformation and ridging. This creates thicker, longer-lasting ice, while exposing surrounding water and thin ice to the blistering cold winds that cause more ice growth. A computer simulation that includes detailed interactions between wind and sea shows that thick ice — more than 6 feet deep — increased by about 1 percent per year from 1979 to 2010, while the amount of thin ice stayed fairly constant. The end result is a thicker, slightly larger ice pack that lasts longer into the summer."
Re:Bullshit! (Score:5, Funny)
No it's real my friend. You just need to believe.
Now put these flowers in your hair and come dance with us.
Re:Wat? (Score:5, Funny)
The global average temperature is still trending up. But to consider things a bit more accurately:
Think of the earth as one big system. For the most part, energy only comes in and goes out through the atmosphere. At the moment, gases in the atmosphere are causing the earth to radiate slightly less energy out into space than it takes in. Before we got started dumping CO2 into the atmosphere, earth was in a state of equilibrium, but that equilibrium has been disrupted. Provided we can stabilize that amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, we should reach a new state of equilibrium, and with any luck, it will be similar to the one we were in before.
If not, then there are a lot of things that could happen, and most of them aren't good.
Extra energy in the atmosphere often becomes heat. This is pretty much the simplest thing that can happen.
Extra energy can also go into warming the land. This seems like a good thing, because the land can act as a buffer by absorbing energy from the atmosphere, but if the land gets too warm and old swamps start to thaw out, large quantities of methane will be released into the air, which will further decrease the earth's ability to radiate excess energy.
Extra energy can also cause increased evaporation of water from the ocean, which increases cloud cover and precipitation. This is why snow isn't evidence that global warming has somehow reversed. That being said, cloud cover and snow are both white, which increases the amount of light reflected back out into space. The trouble is, we're not going to reach an equilibrium state until the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere level off. Increased precipitation might stave off big rises in temperature for a while. Or, it's possible that precipitation will increase so much that the ice sheets will expand very rapidly, causing the earth to radiate away *more* energy than it takes in, which could set off an ice age, which would be really bad. Or, it's possible that cloud cover and precipitation aren't enough to counteract the warming effect at all, in which case we'll continue to see the heating that we're seeing now.
In any case, as long as we're increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in the air, we're pushing things further and further out of equilibrium. If we can't get things under control, it is inevitable that things will eventually swing wildly out of control, because there are only so many potential buffer effects that might absorb or reflect the excess energy. Take the aforementioned cloud cover and precipitation. Since we can increase the greenhouse gases in the air indefinitely, even if cloud cover and precipitation are enough to equalize things for a while, eventually they aren't going to be enough. Or, as I said earlier, they might spiral out of control and become too much. We don't know for sure. But eventually, bad things will happen.
Maybe if we're lucky it'll be in a few hundred years. If we're not so lucky, maybe a few decades.
Re:OMG! It wasn't puzzling (Score:2, Funny)